A Time Of Eclipse
This page summarizes the third chapter of the core book which provides a complete overview of the universe. Its sub-pages continue by duplicating the text from each section. A People's History of an Unfortunate Universe A People’s History of an Unfortunate Universe is a transcript of an audiofile recovered after the catastrophic decompression event on Walther-Pembroke Station. The audiofile is believed to be a recording of Donovan Astrides and to be a summation of his unpublished work of the same name. Timeline The tiemline covers the history of the world of from more than sixty years before the Fall to the present. The Solar System After the Fall Before the Fall, the solar system had a population of approximately eight billion, with all but five million of these people living on Earth. The Fall wiped out almost ninety-five percent of transhumanity, and today the population of the solar system is slightly less than half a billion, with almost all of these transhumans living off the Earth. The lifestyles of these people were almost unimaginable thirty years earlier—the vast majority are immortals living in sealed habitats on hostile alien planets or in sealed space colonies, the largest of which hold more than a million inhabitants and are many kilometers long. In this vastly changed setting with its vastly changed inhabitants, the core concerns of transhumanity remain much the same. People seek both material abundance and social status, and they wrap themselves in various public and private ceremonies. Like generations of humans before them, transhumans separate themselves into different cultures and subcultures, all of which enjoy a wide variety of physical and virtual entertainments. Politics and economics remain vitally important and, as always, those who are wealthy, powerful, and famous have a large degree of control over the lives of those who are poor, relatively powerless, and unknown. Transhumanity Humanity as a concept has been replaced with transhumanity and it is discussed fully on the page linked to in this sentence. It discusses the levels of inequality found among transhumanity and the various clades and degrees of separation they create. Culture and Society The Fall and its aftermath continues to be a major influence on transhuman culture and society. In the full chapter are discussions of longing for Earth, fear and paranoia, real and social distances, rise of cultural regions, cultural experimentation, gender, sexuality, and relationships, and diversity of habitats. Technology Technology has a large influence in the world of . The technology section of the "A Time of Eclipse" chapter covers a great variety of these influences. Politics and Power Politics is just as important in the colonies spread throughout the solar system as it was back on Earth, but it is also radically different. Each habitat or cluster of stations is a separate political entity, and many of these habitats are fiercely independent. The only locations where large political entities can exist are on the marginally habitable worlds of Mars and Titan, and the population of Titan is significantly smaller than that of many of the largest pre-Fall cities on Earth. (Follow this link to read more on this subject.) Keeping the Peace The keeping the peace section of "A Time of Eclipse" discusses justice, crime and law enforcement in the world of . The Economy There are three types of economies found in the world of : old, transitional and new. These are discussed fully on the economy page. Habitats With Earth now uninhabitable, transhumanity survives in a variety of offworld habitats. There are two major types of these habitats: settlements on planets or large moons, such as those on Luna, Mars, Venus, Europa, or Titan, and space habitats that are built on or near an asteroid or other useful source of raw materials. Factions One would have thought a cataclysmic event such as the Fall would bring the surviving elements of transhumanity closer together, jointly dedicating themselves to the repopulation of the solar system and continued prosperity. Instead, the remoteness and physical isolation of transhuman colonies and habitats stretched across the solar system, as well as the effects emerging technologies have had on transhuman economies and social lives, have promoted the evolution of a wide spectrum of philosophies, agendas, and political models. See the factions article for more details. Gazeteer Transhumanity has extended out from its lost homeworld and colonized not only the solar system but various exoplanets as well, thanks to the discovery of the Pandora gates. The Gazeteer portion of the wiki provides information on transhumanity’s settlements and the planets, moons and stations they exist in compiling information from the core rule book's "System Gazeteer" section and other sources including the books Sunward and Rimward. Category:Setting Category:Core Book